Insulated containers (hereafter “coolers”) are often used for storage of food and beverages when powered refrigeration is unavailable, or to provide temporary additional storage space. Some uses for coolers include camping, picnics, beach trips, and outdoor parties. In some applications, coolers are used at nighttime. Often, when coolers are used at nighttime, ambient illumination is insufficient to satisfactorily view the contents of the cooler. Thus, it would be helpful to provide illumination built into the cooler that would be convenient for viewing the contents and would be readily available when needed.
Although coolers with built-in illumination are known, prior art coolers have relied on top-down illumination, that is, a light source located above the expected level of ice, beverages, foods, and/or other items in the cooler. Most of the light provided by such illumination merely reflects off the top surface of the contents, providing only limited illumination. It has been found that providing illumination from a point below the top level of the ice and other contents results in better illumination of the contents and also provides a visually pleasing “glowing” effect. What is needed is a cooler with built-in illumination that provides illumination from a point below a top layer of contents and preferably continues to provide illumination from below the top layer of contents over a range of fill levels of the cooler.